August 2013 Goals and Quotas

With $5,000 in the bank, July has to be seen as a success. With the extra paycheck for August, I’m hoping to ride the wave of success a little while longer.This month expenses besides the mortgages are the water bills, National Grid bills for Alpha and Charlie, and maybe the plane ticket for the Nigeria trip. I’m not looking forward to that, as the ticket may cost up to $1200. Routine wise, my most important issue for this month is getting sleep. With a good night’s sleep, I should be able to do all the things that need doing.

Must Be Opened To Learn

I've only been going to the gym once a week but I think I'm ready for 2 days, Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. I want to continue learning Yoruba, as the clock is ticking until the Nigeria trip. Every time I open that damned book, I lose focus very quickly. Halfway through the page my mind wanders to something stupid and I can’t concentrate. To help, I’ve downloaded a ton of Nigerian movies that I’ll go to sleep with. I’m also gonna start playing Nigerian music in the car when I’m on my way to jobs. Surrounding myself in Yoruba will make learning it much easier, and that should get me to concentrate much better.

After my phone started acting up, I decided to buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 for $300. I traded in Sha’s iPhone and only got $100 for it. I should have sold it on Craigslist but I really hate selling stuff to people. I would mean that, at some point, we’d have to talk. So I have the phone now but can’t activate it until my service date ends with Straight Talk, which is the 11th. When I refill on the 11th, I can use the S3 on Straight Talk’s “Bring Your Own Phone” plan, which means I still only pay $49.37 a month for unlimited everything. This also means that I get a major upgrade with my internal memory, as my current phone has a memory of only 256MB. Every time I’d try to run two programs at once, the phone would get hot and shut off. I’m also anxious to use the S3 because it means I can finally try out new apps that can help me. A fellow blogger recommended a fitness app called Lose It!, which has rave reviews online. I can use that to control my eating much better, as my eating habits weren’t all that great this month.

I also have to continue Chi’s Beautification project and decide the best time to throw out the Africans. I’m having a lot of trouble pulling the trigger on giving them a 30 day notice. I’m not sure why, but it’s difficult to throw people out when everything is going good at that moment. I know I have to do it, so hopefully I can snap out of it in time and realize that throwing them out is good for the long term. August looks to be a decent month, and if I can end the month with $7000 I’ll be happy.